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Salvour Mobile Repair Yard Station
Description The Salvour Mobile Repair Yard Station is a space station designed specifically to be transported via JumpShip docking collar to make yard-level repairs on distressed JumpShips and WarShips near the front lines. It is exceptionally well armed because the station will be often moved very near the front lines or in unexplored space where the danger from pirates is very high. Overview: The Salvour class combat repair station was designed and built for the SLDF after the beginning of the Reunification Wars. With battle damaged WarShips on the front line, the SLDF needed to find some means of bringing shipyard level repair facilities to heavily damaged ships so that the WarShips would be able to resume their place on the battleline in a minimum of time. In some cases, damaged K-F drive components kept damaged WarShips from even being able to return at all to a friendly shipyard for repairs. With subassemblies supplied by other facilities, a Salvour can actually be used as an assembly yard for many different types of large space craft. Many smaller components could be custom manufactured within the station itself given the availability of the necessary raw materials and design information. The Salvour was designed with this in mind. In essence, the Salvour is a free floating repair yard designed to be transportable on the docking collars of any JumpShip or WarShip. The Salvour is one of the largest classes of space station to be transporting in one piece on a single docking collar. A Salvour can be easily maneuvered into position by an Elephant class tug. Since the Salvour would normally be operating very near or at the front lines, the SLDF decided to give the repair station a very formidable defensive capablity. This included half a dozen heavy naval lasers and a heavy battery of conventional anti-fighter weapons. This would be enough to fend off attacking fighters as well as most DropShips. The Salvour would have to rely on other vessels to protect it against enemy WarShips though. The Salvour also has a fairly heavily armored hull to protect it from enemy fire. The Salvour actually extends its spine to allow the use of its unpressurized repair bay by vessels up to 1,000,000 tons. The station literally doubles its length when extended. The spine retracts for transport via JumpShip. A smaller pressurized repair bay allows for the repair of most DropShip designs. Because of the large number of SLDF facilities that existed prior to the Amaris coup, there were actually a relatively small number of Salvours that remained in service by 2750. The surviving Salvours would be badly needed by General Kerensky during this campaign to retake Terra and the worlds surrounding it from Rim World Republican forces. Salvours were brought as close to the front lines as possible to provide rapid response repairs to badly damaged SLDF WarShips and DropShips. As a result, several Salvours themselves were attacked by raiding Amaris naval forces and either badly damaged or destroyed. Only a handful of Salvours survived the recapture of Terra. The SLDF took all of them during the Exodus although there are reports that a Star Lord class JumpShip carrying two Salvours and an Elephant was lost somewhere en route. The JumpShip and all of its cargo are reported to have been recovered by an independent technical services unit sometime shortly after the end of the Fourth Succession War. Capabilities: The Salvour has two separate repair bays. The smaller of the two is a pressurized bay principally for the repair of DropShips. This bay can hold up to 60,000 tons of vessel inside of it. The larger repair bay is unpressurized but has been sized to support WarShips as large one million tons in mass such as a Cameron class battlecruiser. In order for the Salvour to be able to both perform dockyard level repair work on large spacegoing vessels and still be small enough to be transportable on a JumpShip's docking collar, some unique design features in incorporated in the station's design. The unpressurized repair bay is designed to retract during transport and extend when being used. When extended, the "spine" of the repair bay accordions outwards over 300 additional meters to resemble the spinal column of a great skeleton. Various supporting structures extend downward from the spine to support a vessel under repair. These structures resemble an animal's ribcage when extended, literally enveloping the vessel under repair. Like the Snowden Mining Station, the Salvour is equipped with its own K-F boom. The Salvour is specifically designed to be able to mate and be transported via any standard JumpShip docking collar. The Salvour has accommodations for one hundred and thirty passengers and twenty-eight marines. Additionally, the station has eighteen aerospace fighter bays and six small craft bays. Battle History: Salvour repair stations served with distinction with the SLDF from the times of the Reunification War to the end of the war against Stefan Amaris. Often, bloody battles were found around the front line repair points where Salvours were stationed to attempt field repairs on the many damaged SLDF WarShips. Many Salvours were destroyed, leaving only a handful when the SLDF left on their Exodus. All of those left with the SLDF and served the Clans well even to this day. A lost SLDF JumpShip was found by a group of mercenary technicians towards the end of Operation Bulldog. The JumpShip was orbiting an inhabited star system far from normal shipping lanes. On the docking collars of this JumpShip were a pair of Salvours. Apparently, this JumpShip had tried to leave with the rest of the SLDF but had badly misjumped. While the JumpShip was heavily damaged, and its crew dead, the two Salvours were still intact. Apparently, the Salvour's repair lockers lacked several essential components needed to make the JumpShip's K-F drive operational. The crew slowly starved to death without anyone being aware of their fate. Eventually, the JumpShip and both of the Salvours were recovered by the mercenary technical group and put back into service. The entire group, along with both Salvours, disappeared sometime shortly after the end of the FedCom civil war. Armament Each of the Salvour's firing arcs has an NL-55 Capital Laser, five large pulse lasers, a single LRM-20 with Artemis Fire Control, a single Gauss Rifle and a pair of Anti-Missile systems. Cargo The Salvour has over twelve thousand tons of cargo space in its cargo bays. Variants A larger version of the Salvour was under development at the time of the Amaris Coup. This would have been a 98,000 ton space station that was capable of repairing all SLDF WarShips with the exception of the McKenna class battleship and the Newgrange yardship. Construction of the first two prototypes had already started at the beginning of the Coup, but their fate remains unknown since all records from Cortez Manufacturing were lost. References